Bhanu Babaiahgari

August 17, 2026

Guest Lectures
Shaping Your Future — A roadmap for engineering students
Shaping Your Future
Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India

June 22, 2026

Posters
WIP: Undergraduate Research Experience in a Public Impact Research Program
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Charlotte, NC

This theory work-in-progress paper presents a preliminary overview of undergraduate engineering students’ experiences in a Public Impact Research (PIR) program designed to foster academic, personal, and professional growth through meaningful research engagement. The PIR initiative is designed to connect universities with local communities to address societal challenges while equipping students with practical skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. As part of the program, students collaborated on the ”Empowering Families for Energy Reduction” project, which aimed to educate local households on reducing energy expenses and promoting sustainability. Undergraduate students were assigned to project development, community outreach, and data collection activities. Pre-project survey analysis reveals a strong sense of belonging and positive attitudes toward inclusion and support within the engineering discipline. While these results are encouraging, some areas for improvement remain, suggesting the need for continued efforts to strengthen community engagement and inclusivity in engineering education.

June 22, 2026

Posters
WIP: Workshop Activities Focused on Hands-On Abilities For Engineering Students
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Charlotte, NC

This theory work-in-progress paper presents a two-part, hands-on workshop designed to address the gap between engineering students’ theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Despite students’ technological proficiency, many lack direct experience with industrial equipment and essential workplace skills, as highlighted by employer feedback. The workshop engages undergraduate engineering students in the design and fabrication of custom printed circuit boards (PCBs) and 3Dprinted enclosure cases, utilizing industry-standard tools such as Fusion 360 and SolidWorks. The process includes schematic creation, PCB board layout, component selection, and 3D modeling, followed by manufacturing, assembly, and functional testing of the finished products. The initiative aims to enhance students’ technical competencies, teamwork, and sense of belonging within the engineering community. Preliminary outcomes, supported by pre- and post-workshop surveys, suggest improved hands-on skills and increased student engagement.

October 23, 2024

Oral Presentations
A Method For Stabilizing Dual Active Bridge-Based Energy Storage Systems
IEEE Energy Conversion Conference and Expo
Phoenix, AZ, USA

Dual Active Bridge (DAB)-based energy storage systems are the key to integrating renewable energy sources into the power grid. However, because of the well-known negative impedance characteristic of constant power loads (CPLs), the DAB converters are prone to become unstable, destabilizing the overall system. Therefore, a stability enhancement method is proposed using the concept of variable inductance to guarantee and expand the converter stability region that overcomes the risk of destabilization from fast-acting transients. Full-order continuous-time average modeling and dynamic analysis of DAB converters with CPLs are studied to analyze the stability of these systems. The proposed method significantly improves the stability region of the system and is verified using simulation results.

March 17, 2020

Oral Presentations
Stability Enhancement Method for DC Microgrids with Constant Power Loads using Variable Inductor
IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC)
New Orleans, LA, USA

DC microgrid systems are often prone to stability issues due to the negative incremental resistance exhibited by constant power loads (CPLs). In order to estimate the overall stability of the system with CPLs, a simplified small-signal model is derived and solved using Lyapunov's stability criterion. Considering the impact of converter inductance on system stability, a variable inductor-based stabilizer is proposed in order to enhance the stability margin of DC microgrids and guarantee stable operation. The proposed method is validated by a laboratory-scale experimental setup, and the results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

October 1, 2019

Oral Presentations
Stability Analysis for Interconnected DC Microgrids with Constant Power Loads
IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)
Baltimore, MD, USA

Recent trends in the development of DC microgrids have mainly focused on standalone and islanded microgrids for the purpose of reliable power management. However, for the complex scenarios, such as load shedding due to excessive generation, energy storage overcharging and discharging, interconnecting standalone microgrids can be a very attractive solution. The main focus of this paper is to analyze and study the asymptotic stability of interconnected systems with conventional converters. A novel method using Lyapunov stability criterion is introduced and analyzed to provide a guideline for stable operation of interconnected systems. Finally, simulations are performed in MATLAB/Simulink environment to verify the proposed formulation and analysis and are validated with experimental results.

June 17, 2019

Oral Presentations
Work in Progress: Design and Implementation of an Advanced Electric Drive Laboratory using a Commercial Microcontroller and a MATLAB Embedded Coder
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Tampa, FL, USA

This paper presents a design for an advanced instructional electric drives laboratory using commercial Texas Instruments (TI) C2000 microcontroller and MATLAB-based Embedded Coder toolbox. The main objective of this project is to familiarize students with real-time implementation of advanced electric machine drive concepts such as field-oriented vector control by programming high-performance industrial microcontrollers. Hands-on experience with electric drives is also provided through the operation and control of machines. This laboratory course, designed to follow the advanced lecture course on electric drives, aims to improve students’ understanding of theory. Experiments, hardware and instruments for the proposed laboratory course are discussed.

June 25, 2018

Oral Presentations
Design and Implementation of Electric Drives Laboratory using Commercial Microcontroller Development Kits
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Salt Lake City, UT, USA

A design and implementation of instructional electric drives laboratory at University of Colorado Denver using commercial off-the-shelf microcontroller kits and small motors is described in this paper. The main objective of this project is to provide senior level students with hands-on experience on electric machine drives and industrial microcontroller programming. This laboratory is associated with the electric drives lecture course to enhance their understanding of the theory taught in lectures with tangible examples. Moreover, the skills and experience on electric machines and drives that students gain in this laboratory can be readily applied in their senior design projects that are integrated with motion control components. Experiments, hardware components and instruments about the proposed laboratory course are presented.

September 19, 2016

Oral Presentations
A comparative study on electrical distribution systems for the U.S. coast guard's 270-ft medium endurance cutter
IEEE North American Power Symposium (NAPS)
Denver, CO, USA

The U.S. Coast Guard's 270-ft Medium Endurance Cutter (WMEC) is a powerhouse of the Coast Guard fleet filling a critical role in defense of the homeland. While the U.S. Navy has conducted extensive research into the use of zonal DC electrical distribution systems (DCDS) for their ships, no project has analyzed the installation of DCDS on a Coast Guard cutter which has a significantly different load profile than Navy warships. In this paper, Simulink models of a zonal DCDS system for 270-ft WMEC is presented as well as the existing radial AC distribution system (ACDS) and tested with three typical WMEC operational transients. The result demonstrated than the DCDS showed greater transients, but it has much faster dynamic response owing to the introduction of power electronic converters.